Which profession close to engineer has the cheapest insurance?

FormulaDriven

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

If you're a mechanical engineer, I would have thought that you're quite a good insurance risk in the eyes of the insurers - professional, sensible, logical, educated, and with an understanding of mechanics that would tend to imply you drive carefully and "sympathetically" with respect to the car.

You may be joking, but I don't think that's how underwriters would determine any rating for occupation. They could equally say: "stereotypical male, likely to have an over-confident view of their ability to control a machine, may take undue risks".


What in fact I would expect them (or their actuaries) to do, is to collect claims data, analyse for variation according to declared occupation, and build that into statistical models for calculating risk premiums. (In practice, I suspect they lump some occupations into classes [with similar levels of educational attainment, income etc] and rate on those).


Ha! Just typed the above then though I should check the link given above by facade, and found the following wording:


The cost of your car insurance is a result of many factors including age, sex, where you live and occupation. Insurers use what’s called ‘actuarial risk tables’ which show the different related risks built up after mining years' worth of data.
...
All insurers also keep a record of past claims made by each occupation, so they can see which are the most risky and more likely to claim. So if you’re in a high risk role, it’s likely your predecessors are to blame.

ohreally

phill99 wrote: »

A sonographer isn't an engineer, its a medical professional.

Obviously it went right over your head.

Ebe_Scrooge

FormulaDriven wrote: »

You may be joking...

Of course I am - but the OP started it :rotfl:

FormulaDriven

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

Of course I am - but the OP started it :rotfl:

I suspected you were but dry humour is hard to detect sometimes when you can't hear tone of voice.


Funnily enough, a paragraph that I snipped from the MSE quote above reads: Your job is important as it can affect how you drive, who you take as a passenger, and how many points you have. For example, journalists are mooted to be very expensive as they tend to drive a lot, be in a rush, and risk carrying high profile passengers, which would up the cost in a law suit.

So, MSE have also tried the "just-so" stories approach to risk assessment. I'm not sure how tongue-in-cheek they were being.

Ebe_Scrooge

FormulaDriven wrote: »

Funnily enough, a paragraph that I snipped from the MSE quote above reads: Your job is important as it can affect how you drive, who you take as a passenger, and how many points you have. For example, journalists are mooted to be very expensive as they tend to drive a lot, be in a rush, and risk carrying high profile passengers, which would up the cost in a law suit.

So, MSE have also tried the "just-so" stories approach to risk assessment. I'm not sure how tongue-in-cheek they were being.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's a bit of both - based purely on historical data, the insurance companies see that journalists have a lot of accidents and / or cost a lot of money in payouts. Perhaps MSE have then tried to come up with a reasonable explanation of why this is so. Yes, the risk assesment is based purely on statistics, but there probably is an element of truth as to the explanation of the cause.


Similarly, I suspect premier league footballers have high premiums - they tend to be rich, drive very expensive cars, and these cost an awful lot of money when they get pranged. They're not necessarily any worse drivers than anyone else, but a Ferrari costs rather more to put right than a Fiesta.

FormulaDriven

The data determine the premiums, but of course, there's no harm in trying to put some narrative to try to explain what the data are showing.


I don't think your footballer example quite works, because there the make and value of the car will determine the high premium. The occupation might then have some bearing (if data show that footballers are more prone to accidents compared with other wealthy owners of sports cars).

Stevie_Palimo

Lol but everyone likes to bully VeryMan and he does get a rather hard time on this forum when he posts anything, I shall not defend your post though Veryman saying all the P****s is uncalled for.

Sometimes in life we need to learn when to take a step back and a deep breath prior to speaking and this applies in both face to face and online conversations, Something a few people need to learn on this forum I believe.

dacouch

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

Assuming you are genuinely an engineer and not just trying to commit fraud ... If you're a mechanical engineer, I would have thought that you're quite a good insurance risk in the eyes of the insurers - professional, sensible, logical, educated, and with an understanding of mechanics that would tend to imply you drive carefully and "sympathetically" with respect to the car.

Mechanical Engineer would traditionally be rated higher than an engineer mainly due to Insurers worrying about a claim under the driving other cars extension whilst driving a vehicle for work.

It's incredibly unlikely for a doc claim on say an item of construction plant but that's how Insurers used to work even though they could potentially have just excluded DOC.

Now days it will include the data they have collected as well.

Footballers are very highly rated with very very few Insurers prepared to take the risk on them as they were traditionally a moral hazard due to a heavy drinking culture. In addition they also tend to be very reckless eg with attitudes to driving, driving skills and driving away from accidents.

However the main reason is they're likely to associate with other professional players. If they have an accident with a youngish Wayne Rooney in the car, it's far easier to cause a career ending injury to a footballer than say an officer worker who could potentially retrain and not suffer a huge dip in wages. An injury to Wayne Rooney could prompt a loss of earning claim of £300k per week for the rest of the football career of say ten years.

That sort of claim could easily wipe out the annual profit of a large Insurer such as Aviva in one claim. A similar claim for one of your colleagues in your car would hardly make a dent in the Insurers figures.

When it comes to Insurers, it's easier for them to say no or load a premium than to take a risk on something that could go badly wrong

Fat_Walt

dacouch wrote: »

Mechanical Engineer would traditionally be rated higher than an engineer mainly due to Insurers worrying about a claim under the driving other cars extension whilst driving a vehicle for work.

It's incredibly unlikely for a doc claim on say an item of construction plant but that's how Insurers used to work even though they could potentially have just excluded DOC.

Now days it will include the data they have collected as well.

Footballers are very highly rated with very very few Insurers prepared to take the risk on them as they were traditionally a moral hazard due to a heavy drinking culture. In addition they also tend to be very reckless eg with attitudes to driving, driving skills and driving away from accidents.

However the main reason is they're likely to associate with other professional players. If they have an accident with a youngish Wayne Rooney in the car, it's far easier to cause a career ending injury to a footballer than say an officer worker who could potentially retrain and not suffer a huge dip in wages. An injury to Wayne Rooney could prompt a loss of earning claim of £300k per week for the rest of the football career of say ten years.

That sort of claim could easily wipe out the annual profit of a large Insurer such as Aviva in one claim. A similar claim for one of your colleagues in your car would hardly make a dent in the Insurers figures.

When it comes to Insurers, it's easier for them to say no or load a premium than to take a risk on something that could go badly wrong

But if Rooney were to take himself out in a crash where's his claim? The driver is usually not insured for at fault collisions. So by your logic his should be cheaper than yours.

z1a

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

Assuming you are genuinely an engineer and not just trying to commit fraud ... If you're a mechanical engineer, I would have thought that you're quite a good insurance risk in the eyes of the insurers - professional, sensible, logical, educated, and with an understanding of mechanics that would tend to imply you drive carefully and "sympathetically" with respect to the car.

Mmmm, I am a skilled mech. aerospace engineer - Sensible, - ish.
Drives carefully and sympathetically, - carefully, yes, sympathetically - def. not. - Having said that, I have only had 1 at fault accident in 40 years. ( up to now!)